Scholz comments on the “bad word of the year” for 2023
Jury chooses “Remigration” as “Unword of the Year” 2023
The jury for the language-critical “Unword” campaign chose “Remigration” as “Unword of the Year 2023”. It is a “right-wing fighting term” and an “euphemistic camouflage vocabulary”. The term caused a stir due to reporting on an AfD meeting with right-wing extremists in Potsdam.
The choice couldn’t be more timely: “Remigration” has been declared “unword of the year” by a jury. This is also a reason for Chancellor Olaf Scholz to emphasize: “Anyone who lives here, works here and is committed to the basic values of our democracy belongs to us.”
Dhe “bad word of the year” for 2023 is “remigration”. This was announced by the language-critical “Unwort” campaign on Monday in Marburg. “In the Identitarian Movement, in right-wing parties and other right-wing to right-wing extremist groups, the word has become a euphemism for the demand for forced expulsion and even mass deportations of people with a migration background,” the jury explained its decision. The use of the word is criticized because last year it was used as a “right-wing fighting term, a euphemistic cover vocabulary and an expression that obscures the actual intentions”.
With their “non-word” selection, the jury, which consists mostly of linguists, takes up a current debate. Last Wednesday, the media company “Correctiv” published research results about a meeting in a Potsdam villa, which individual AfD officials and individual members of the Values Union also took part in November.
The former head of the right-wing extremist Identitarian Movement in Austria, Martin Sellner, confirmed to the German Press Agency that he had spoken about “remigration” there. When right-wing extremists use the term remigration, they usually mean that large numbers of people of foreign origin should leave the country – even under duress.
The linguist and jury speaker Constanze Spieß had already reported in December that “remigration” was among the entries for the “unword” freestyle – that is, even before the current debate.
Scholz: “Regardless of origin or skin color. Point”
Chancellor Olaf Scholz has commented on the “bad word of the year”, “remigration”. “Anyone who lives here, works here and believes in the basic values of our democracy belongs to us. Regardless of origin or skin color. Period,” he said on Monday on the communications platform “X”. The post was tagged with the hashtag #Unwortdesjahr.
In second place, the jury placed the term “social climate”, which was used in the debate about basic child welfare. This choice of words denigrates and defames the group of people with low income and assets and at the same time stigmatizes the group of children who are affected by poverty or at risk of poverty. The term “Heizungs-Stasi” takes third place. The jury criticized the expression used with regard to the Building Energy Act as “populist propaganda against climate protection measures”.
The “bad word of the year” was selected based on various criteria from suggestions that citizens submitted by December 31, 2023. This time there were a total of 2,301 entries, which was significantly more than the previous year. They contained 710 different terms, of which almost 110 met the jury’s criteria.
According to those responsible, the “bad word of the year” includes terms and formulations that violate the principles of human dignity or democracy, that discriminate against social groups or that are euphemistic, obfuscating or misleading. How often a term was suggested is not decisive for the “non-word” choice. For 2022, the choice fell on “climate terrorists”.